Other People's Houses(18)

Frances walked down the school hallway perplexed. Had she missed a memo? Pencils, paper, textbooks, iPhone? Really? She looked up and realized she’d walked the wrong way out of Jennifer’s office. A bell rang for the end of class, and suddenly the hall was filled with kids, as tall or taller than Frances. They all had backpacks large enough to support a three-month exploration of Europe, and Frances was nearly knocked over several times before she managed to find a clear channel down the center of the hallway.

“Mom?” Shit, she’d come face-to-face with Ava, who at first looked pleased to see her, then suspicious. “Is there something wrong? Is everyone OK? What are you doing here?” The other kids pushed around them, and Frances got a sudden mental image of the buffalo stampede in The Lion King. She really needed to spend less time with Disney.

“Everyone’s fine. I had to see Jennifer about something.” She looked at her daughter. “Is that eyeliner?”

“You came to see if I was wearing makeup?”

“No, I’m just asking a question. And while I’m asking: Is that lipstick?”

Ava narrowed her eyes. “Seriously?”

Frances took a breath. “Let’s start over, OK?”

“OK.”

“Hi, Ava, funny meeting you here.”

“Not really, I’m here every day. You, however . . .”

“I’m here to see your counselor, because I had some questions for her.”

“About me?”

“Of course, what other topic would we discuss?”

“Your secret desire to become a cheerleader?”

Frances laughed. “Busted.”

Ava smiled, then the bell rang again. “I have to go. Mom, really, why are you here?”

“To spy on you. We can talk about it when I pick you up later, OK?” Frances went to hug her daughter, expecting to be rebuffed, but Ava hugged her back, tightly.

“I miss you when I’m at school,” she said quietly in Frances’s ear.

“Me, too,” her mom replied.

They let go of each other, and Ava put on a believable expression of unconcern. “See ya later, Mom.”

Frances nodded and Ava walked off. After a moment Frances turned to leave, so when Ava turned around to smile at her mother one more time, she only saw her back.





Nine.


Driving away from school, Frances called Michael, putting the call on speaker.

“Sup, dog?” His voice always cheered her up.

“Do you have five minutes to chat?” She slowed to let an extremely slow old lady cross the street, causing the person behind her to honk his horn. She raised her hand in front of her driver’s mirror, the middle finger extended. What was she supposed to do, run the woman down? We’re all getting old, asshole, she thought, it won’t be long before it’s you shuffling along and peeing anxiously into your adult diapers because some dick, who isn’t brave enough to chivy you face-to-face, is happy to lean on his horn. Fuck you, asshole. The guy honked again and she rolled down the window and extended her other hand: tipped up palm, emphatic point at old person, middle finger. Frances knew that mime documentary she’d watched would come in handy one day. She tried to focus on her husband.

“Yup, as long as it’s five minutes. I have a meeting at ten.” He sounded busy, but relaxed, which was pretty much his default state.

Frances looked at her watch, nine forty-five. “OK. I went to school to talk to Jennifer the counselor.”

Michael laughed. “And now you want to become a cheerleader?”

“Ava said the same thing. What is with you people?” The lady had reached the other side, and stood there panting. Frances wondered what she thought about, whether she paid any attention to the world around her or just focused on making it across street after street. She suddenly hated the young guy behind her and then, as he pulled past her and honked angrily one last time, saw he was a middle-aged woman like herself.

“Ava was there, too? Why didn’t you have me come?” He sounded slightly less amused.

“No, she wasn’t there at the meeting. I ran into her in the hallway.”

“Busted! Was she mad?”

“Not really, although she was wearing makeup that she hadn’t been wearing when I dropped her off half an hour earlier.” Frances wondered why this even mattered to her, why she was even mentioning it. Sometimes she was critical for no real reason she could discern, and didn’t like it in herself. If it had been conscious she could stop herself from doing it, but it seemed to come from nowhere. She’d heard somewhere that a sad portion of your thoughts are just society’s opinions, disguised as inner monologue. A depressing thought, or was that just society telling you it was a depressing thought? She was getting a headache.

“Well, so? She is fourteen. A little makeup is a rebellion I can handle.” Michael sounded a little defensive. He paused and then said, “Unless we’re talking full drag queen.”

“No, eyeliner and lipstick. Michael, that is not the point. The point is that she’s dropped all her extracurriculars, without telling us.”

“School paper?”

“No, she quit. And orchestra. And animation club, which, to be honest, I didn’t know she was doing, so the fact that she isn’t doing it anymore isn’t really a thing for me, although it’s a bit sad.” Frances heard voices in the background, and felt her husband getting distracted. “Are you listening?”